We suggest students work in pairs for this activity. Homeschool students can work alone, but will need to test all the different types of candy on their own.

You will need a source of hot water for this activity and a way to keep the containers of hot water warm. You can either use a cooler or create your own insulator using a cardboard box and bath towels.

Prepare the Candy

You need to fill the Ziploc bags with candy before class. This will take about 20 minutes.

1. Count out one Ziploc bag per student.
2. For half of those bags, put 12 chocolate chips (or a small square of chocolate) in each.
3. Divide the remaining bags into three groups: “A,” “B,” and “C.”
4. Put a few pieces of Candy Variety 1 with a low melting point (gummy bears or gummy worms) into each “A” bag. Put a few pieces of Candy Variety 2 with an intermediate melting point (Starburst, caramels, or butterscotch chips) into each “B” bag. Put a few pieces of Candy Variety 3 with a high melting point (jelly beans, gumdrops, or Swedish Fish) into each “C” bag.
5. When you hand out the Ziploc bags to your students, make sure that each pair of students gets a bag of chocolate and a bag of either group “A,” “B,” or “C” so they can compare the melting point of chocolate to one of the other candy types.

Note: For a fair test, try to keep the amount of chocolate and candy in each bag consistent.

Homeschool students will need 4 Ziploc bags. One bag with chocolate chips, one with high melting point candy, one with medium melting point candy, and one with low melting point candy.

Prepare the Hot Water

When students do the activity, the water needs to be hot to the touch — a little above body temperature. You can fill the containers with hot water up to 3 hours before you do the activity, as long as you have a way to keep them insulated.

1. Start with water that’s hot enough to make a cup of tea (about 180° F or 82°C).
2. Fill each container about halfway with the hot water. Place the lid on top of each container.
3. Put the containers in a cooler (or line a cardboard box with some thick bath towels and wrap the containers up to keep them warm).

Prepare the Results Chart

At the end of the activity, we suggest that you gather all student results from their Candy Melt experiment and record it on the board for everyone to see. Below is an example of the chart that you can write on the board either before class or while the Exploration video is playing.